Andrew Gilder The yearly FNB Vita Dance Umbrella in Gauteng is the premier showcase for emerging and established choreographic talent. Over the years its solitary position, and the abundance of talent, led to the Umbrella becoming over-populated and unwieldy.
To remedy this situation FNB Vita organised -satellite+ festivals to give artists not able to make the trek northwards the opportunity to work in a professional environment with access to staging, lighting and technicians. This year sees festivals in Cape Town (Dance Indaba 2000) and Grahamstown (Dance Umdudo 2000). Beset by problems last year in the guise of participants+ dissatisfaction over performances given by controversial artist Steven Cohen, the seventh annual FNB Vita Dance Indaba (Nico Theatre, August 2 to 6), has a number of points of interest. The guest choreographer is Inzalo Dance and Theatre Company+s Moeketsi Koena, who recently scored a coup in Cape Town with his acclaimed Dihpororo, danced by the Cape Town City Ballet and Jazzart Dance Theatre companies. Koena+s work Thought of Thoughts will be presented on each of the four evening programmes. A new work by a major choreographer is always noteworthy and this is definitely the case for Chris-topher Kindo+s work-in- progress, Black Tide, set to a piece of music entitled Dafos by composer Mickey Hart, and scheduled for Saturday night+s programme.
Kindo intends to present a first-ever season consisting entirely of his own works soon and is currently weaving together a suitable ensemble.
Included in the Black Tide cast is Ebrahim Medell, whose experience includes the ground-breaking work of the Playhouse Dance Company in the early 1990s. Most recently counted among the ranks of the (now defunct) State Theatre Dance Company, Medell is one of the many professionals working from one choreographic project to the next as the number of full-time dance contracts in the country spirals downwards. A further aspect of the Indaba is the presentation of the works of four ex- students of physical theatre guru Gary Gordon of Rhodes University. After sharing a similar point of departure the careers of these four dancemakers have moved in different directions. How the choreographies of Samantha Pienaar (University of Stellenbosch), Sarah Tudge (Heel Arts Collective), PJ Sabbagha (Gauteng+s Forgotten Angle Physical Theatre Company) and Lanon Prigge compare and contrast today will, no doubt, be a matter of keen debate. Indaba 2000 promises to provide well-crafted and performed dance to suit all tastes. For more information try http:// www.artslink.co.za/fnb and click the +Indaba+ link
Andy Capostagno rugby +Lend an ear,+ said Nelie Smith. -Let+s have a bosberaad,+ said Gideon Sam. -Yes,+ said Nick Mallett, and -No.+ To explain: Mallett said at a media conference at Johannesburg International airport that yes, he believes he has around him the expertise to raise the level of Springbok back play and no, he will not consider changing his coaching panel to bring in a backline expert. In other words, votes of confidence all round from the coach while the manager calls for a gathering of rugby experts to sort out the national side. Actually what Sam said was: -Let+s get 200 people from the platteland together in one room and discuss this,+ but surely he couldn+t have been as racially nave as that. Surely he doesn+t really believe that all the criticism of the current set-up is coming exclusively from disenfranchised white farmers who still think that rugby in this country belongs to them and them alone. In fact he did go on to mention the urban population, coloureds and blacks, all of whom have a stake in South African rugby, but he neglected to suggest who, if not 200 plattelanders, should be at the suggested bosberaad.
On Sunday Smith reminisced about the bosberaad that convened in 1994, the year that England won the first Test against the Springboks at Loftus Versfeld. Ian McIntosh was then in charge of the national side and he was invited to a gathering with no fewer than 17 stakeholders in South African rugby. Louis Luyt sat in the chair and a lot of dirty linen was aired. Mac does not have fond memories of it and suggests that the subsequent series defeat in New Zealand was in part due to the fact that too many people had an input into the playing affairs of the national side. But that did not stop him suggesting he would happily give his input to a scaled-down bosberaad this time around. Any meeting of rugby minds in this country should, perforce, include Mac, a man who has lived, loved and coached rugby for 30 years. It should also include Andre Markgraaff, a man who was forced out of the public eye in disgrace, but who has much to offer still. Harry Viljoen should be asked along, and so should Laurie Mains and Smith. An outsider+s view would also be appreciated and who better than Francois Pienaar, the captain of the most successful side this country has produced who is in the process of stepping into the field of coaching with his English club side Saracens? Six men with hugely different backgrounds, but all steeped in rugby. They should book a chalet at a game farm and ask Mallett, Alan Solomons and Heyneke Meyer to explain themselves. That is to say that, rather than point a sharpened tongue at the press – who always seem to cop the blame when the national side is losing – the coaching staff should present to a jury of their peers.
They should be given a blackboard and a video machine and a brief to outline exactly what it is that they are trying to achieve with the new game plan. For, from the admittedly technically challenged mind of a mere pressman, it is difficult to see any raison d+tre other than a slavish desire to keep hold of the ball. What that has resulted in is a blinkered approach to the game as a whole, one based entirely around possession, with no credence given to establishing field position or forcing the opposition to do anything other than tackle one green-shirted foot-soldier after another. Confronted by criticism of their methods, the coaching staff reverts to criticising the past and pointing to the lack of success achieved by South African sides in the Super 12. They suggest that the recent law changes make their style of play inevitable, which apart from anything else pours scorn on the wonderful rugby played under Mallett and Solomons by the Springbok touring team of 1997.
A bosberaad would expose the limitations of the new game plan but, more importantly, it would have the combined rugby knowledge to suggest how it might be made to work. No one is suggesting that keeping the ball in hand is a bad idea, but if the inevitable result of that is to knock on in the eighth phase due to the pressure from the defending side, then something is wrong. At last year+s World Cup final I happened to bump into Mac as I made my way through the crowd. I asked him if, in the light of the limitations shown by the Springboks at the tournament, he might be persuaded to have another go at coaching the national side. He said: -Hey, I was mad once, do you think I+d be mad again?+ This week I reminded him of our meeting and he said: -But I+d do it now, because it would only take two weeks to fix it.+
Come on, Nick, don+t take that as the sour grapes of an old coach, lend an ear to those who have been where you are and know how to help. The truth, as the saying goes, shall set you free.